These ancestors were part of the M89 Middle Eastern Clan that continued to migrate northwest into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe. These people may have been responsible for the expansion of the prosperous Gravettian culture, which spread through northern Europe from about 21,000 to 28,000 years ago.

The man who gave rise to marker M170 was born about 20,000 years ago and was heir to this heritage. He was probably born in one of the isolated refuge area people were forced to occupy during the last blast of the Ice Age, possibly in the Balkans. As the ice sheets covering much of Europe began to retreat around 15,000 years ago, his descendants likely played a central role in recolonizing northern Europe.

It’s possible that the Vikings descended from this line. The Viking raids on the British Isles might explain why the lineage can be found in populations in southern France and among some Celtic populations.

Historic sources sometimes cite instances of genocide incited by the Romans upon rebellious provincial tribes. If this did in fact occur, it would have been limited given that modern populations show considerable genetic continuity in their respective regions. The process of 'romanization' appears to have been accomplished by the colonization of provinces by a few Latin speaking administrators, military personnel and private citizens (merchants, traders) who emanated from the Empire's various regions (and not merely the Italian peninsula). They served as a nucleus for the acculturation of local notables. Given their small numbers and varied origins, Romanization does not appear to have left distinct genetic signatures in Europe. Indeed, Romance-speaking populations in the Balkans have been found to genetically resemble neighbouring Greek and Slavic-speaking peoples rather than modern Italians. Steven Bird has speculated that E1b1b1a was spread during the Roman era from Italy and the Balkans into the rest of Europe.

Scheme of Indo-European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BC according to the Kurgan hypothesis. The magenta area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture). The red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 2500 BC; the orange area to 1000 BC.

Piazza & Cavalli-Sforza (2006) state that:

if the expansions began at 9,500 years ago from Anatolia and at 6,000 years ago from the Yamnaya culture region, then a 3,500-year period elapsed during their migration to the Volga-Don region from Anatolia, probably through the Balkans. There a completely new, mostly pastoral culture developed under the stimulus of an environment unfavourable to standard agriculture, but offering new attractive possibilities. Our hypothesis is, therefore, that Indo-European languages derived from a secondary expansion from the Yamnaya culture region after the Neolithic farmers, possibly coming from Anatolia and settled there, developing pastoral nomadism.

Wells (2002) instead argues for Gimbutas' model:

While we see substantial genetic and archaeological evidence for an Indo-European migration originating in the southern Russian steppes, there is little evidence for a similarly massive Indo-European migration from the Middle East to Europe. One possibility is that, as a much earlier migration (8,000 years old, as opposed to 4,000), the genetic signals carried by Indo-European-speaking farmers may simply have dispersed over the years. There is clearly some genetic evidence for migration from the Middle East, as Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues showed, but the signal is not strong enough for us to trace the distribution of Neolithic languages throughout the entirety of Indo-European-speaking Europe.

Dezbaterea lingvistica

The Balkan sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of areal features—similarity in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among languages of the Balkans, which belong to various branches of Indo-European, such as Slavic, Greek, Romance and Albanian. While they share little vocabulary, their grammars also have similarities; for example they have similar case systems and have all become more analytic, although to differing degrees.

The most commonly accepted theory, advanced by Polish scholar Zbigniew Golab, is that the innovations came from different sources and the languages influenced each other: some features can be traced from Latin, Slavic or Greek languages, while others, particularly features that are shared only by Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after Romanization (in the case of Romanian) or Slavicization (in the case of Bulgarian). Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept many of its original characteristics. Several arguments favour this theory:

throughout the turbulent history of the Balkans, many groups of people moved to another place, inhabited by people of another ethnicity. These small groups were usually assimilated quickly and sometimes left marks in the new language they acquired.

the use of more than one language was common in the Balkans before the modern age, and a drift in one language would quickly spread to other languages.

the dialects that have the most "balkanisms" are those in regions where people had contact with people of many other languages.

These ancestors were part of the M89 Middle Eastern Clan that continued to migrate northwest into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe. These people may have been responsible for the expansion of the prosperous Gravettian culture, which spread through northern Europe from about 21,000 to 28,000 years ago.

The man who gave rise to marker M170 was born about 20,000 years ago and was heir to this heritage. He was probably born in one of the isolated refuge area people were forced to occupy during the last blast of the Ice Age, possibly in the Balkans. As the ice sheets covering much of Europe began to retreat around 15,000 years ago, his descendants likely played a central role in recolonizing northern Europe.

It’s possible that the Vikings descended from this line. The Viking raids on the British Isles might explain why the lineage can be found in populations in southern France and among some Celtic populations.

Historic sources sometimes cite instances of genocide incited by the Romans upon rebellious provincial tribes. If this did in fact occur, it would have been limited given that modern populations show considerable genetic continuity in their respective regions. The process of 'romanization' appears to have been accomplished by the colonization of provinces by a few Latin speaking administrators, military personnel and private citizens (merchants, traders) who emanated from the Empire's various regions (and not merely the Italian peninsula). They served as a nucleus for the acculturation of local notables. Given their small numbers and varied origins, Romanization does not appear to have left distinct genetic signatures in Europe. Indeed, Romance-speaking populations in the Balkans have been found to genetically resemble neighbouring Greek and Slavic-speaking peoples rather than modern Italians. Steven Bird has speculated that E1b1b1a was spread during the Roman era from Italy and the Balkans into the rest of Europe.

Scheme of Indo-European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BC according to the Kurgan hypothesis. The magenta area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture). The red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 2500 BC; the orange area to 1000 BC.

Piazza & Cavalli-Sforza (2006) state that:

if the expansions began at 9,500 years ago from Anatolia and at 6,000 years ago from the Yamnaya culture region, then a 3,500-year period elapsed during their migration to the Volga-Don region from Anatolia, probably through the Balkans. There a completely new, mostly pastoral culture developed under the stimulus of an environment unfavourable to standard agriculture, but offering new attractive possibilities. Our hypothesis is, therefore, that Indo-European languages derived from a secondary expansion from the Yamnaya culture region after the Neolithic farmers, possibly coming from Anatolia and settled there, developing pastoral nomadism.

Wells (2002) instead argues for Gimbutas' model:

While we see substantial genetic and archaeological evidence for an Indo-European migration originating in the southern Russian steppes, there is little evidence for a similarly massive Indo-European migration from the Middle East to Europe. One possibility is that, as a much earlier migration (8,000 years old, as opposed to 4,000), the genetic signals carried by Indo-European-speaking farmers may simply have dispersed over the years. There is clearly some genetic evidence for migration from the Middle East, as Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues showed, but the signal is not strong enough for us to trace the distribution of Neolithic languages throughout the entirety of Indo-European-speaking Europe.

Dezbaterea lingvistica

The Balkan sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of areal features—similarity in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among languages of the Balkans, which belong to various branches of Indo-European, such as Slavic, Greek, Romance and Albanian. While they share little vocabulary, their grammars also have similarities; for example they have similar case systems and have all become more analytic, although to differing degrees.

The most commonly accepted theory, advanced by Polish scholar Zbigniew Golab, is that the innovations came from different sources and the languages influenced each other: some features can be traced from Latin, Slavic or Greek languages, while others, particularly features that are shared only by Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, could be explained by the substratum kept after Romanization (in the case of Romanian) or Slavicization (in the case of Bulgarian). Albanian was influenced by both Latin and Slavic, but it kept many of its original characteristics. Several arguments favour this theory:

throughout the turbulent history of the Balkans, many groups of people moved to another place, inhabited by people of another ethnicity. These small groups were usually assimilated quickly and sometimes left marks in the new language they acquired.

the use of more than one language was common in the Balkans before the modern age, and a drift in one language would quickly spread to other languages.

the dialects that have the most "balkanisms" are those in regions where people had contact with people of many other languages.